Residents of Hill Street, and surrounding streets, near Dreyfus Intermediate School are fed up with the large, wooded, city-owned vacant lot that harbors racoons, opposums, and snakes that make frequent and unwelcome appearances on their property. The site was to be the home of a newly constructed 120 Precinct, a plan that fell through.
Staten Island Advance/Virginia N. Sherry

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - STAPLETON - Homeowners are singing the blues on Hill Street, and other residential blocks in close proximity to the large, densely wooded, city-owned lot where the plan was to construct a new NYPD 120th Precinct, with a $40 million price tag.

That project was shelved in 2009 because of the city's weak economy, and instead of the planned 70,000-square-foot, three-story station house on Hill Street, the site is now home to raccoons, opposum, rats and snakes.

"The vacant lot has been abandoned by the city," charged one homeowner who purchased a house on Hill Street in 2008 and did not want his name published.

For the past five years, he said that he has complained numerous times to 311 about "the jungle looks" and rats, 'possums and snakes that wander onto nearby property.

"It is a shame that this city-owned property is managed this way," he said, citing children who walk on Hill Street to attend school at PS 14 and Dreyfus Intermediate School at the corner of Warren and Hill streets.

"They should develop (the property) into something good for the community, and relocate the animals," recommended a resident of Susan Court.

The city-owned lot is under NYPD jurisdiction and management, a spokesperson for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services told the Advance on June 4.